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Japan PM urges a new start to relations with China

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has urged a reset in frayed ties with China at his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his spokesman said.

"Prime Minister Abe explained (to Xi) about our thoughts that we should develop Japan-China relations by going back to the original point of the strategic, mutually beneficial relationship," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo.

A Japanese embassy spokesman in Moscow said the two leaders shook hands and spoke for about five minutes on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg.

It is the first time the two men have met since Abe took office in December and Xi in March, and was the first meeting between leaders from the two countries since a brief encounter in September last year.

According to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Abe said he had been looking forward to seeing Xi in the Russian city and that "I am eager to improve Japanese-Chinese relations".

The agency cited Xi as telling Abe that Beijing wants to improve ties "on the basis of the four Chinese-Japanese political documents" -- a reference to agreements hammered out from the early 1970s onwards, as the two countries normalised relations.

The report said Xi had reiterated China's position that Japan must address historical grievances.

Beijing regularly charges that Tokyo has not made sufficient amends for its aggressive and acquisitive behaviour in the middle of the 20th century, and that Japan plays down the extent of its wrongdoing.

Japan says it has apologised and maintains that Beijing uses history to beat its neighbour and as a rallying cry at home to distract attention from problems in China.

Often-difficult relations between the world's second and third largest economies worsened significantly in September last year when Japan nationalised islands it already controlled under the name Senkakus.

Beijing says the archipelago, which it calls the Diaoyus, was illegally snatched by Japan at the close of the 19th century, and demands the islands back.

Official Chinese ships, and latterly the country's coastguard, have regularly plied the waters around the islands in the East China Sea, where they are warned off by Japan's coastguard.

The two countries' militaries have also been involved, with fighter planes scrambled numerous times, although there has been no contact.

Observers warn the island spat has the potential to turn into an armed confrontation that risks dragging in other countries in the region.